Sunday, September 23, 2007

Seeking Trophy Wife

Seeking Trophy Wife: M.R.S. Degree Required By Mike S. AdamsMonday, May 7, 2007 I have a friend who’s going through a rough time in his marriage. Recently, his wife told him she was moving out and getting an apartment for six months so she could “find herself.” In typical feminist fashion she asked him for some money to help pay for her lease, power, and cable deposits. One of her main criticisms of him was that he offered her unsolicited financial advice. Had she listened to her husband she wouldn’t be in such a fix. So I told my friend to give her a copy of the book Catch-22 instead of writing her a check. Maybe she could “find herself” in a twelve dollar novel by Joseph Heller.

Of course, when I hear of married women making idiotic statements like “I need to go find myself,” “I need to learn how to be me,” and “My husband and I should be equals in every respect of the marriage” I’m forced to make one of two conclusions. First, the woman is not taking the medication her psychiatrist prescribed for her. That can be cured by simply telling her to take her damned medication.

But the other conclusion - that she is just a bad wife because she got a bad education while she was in college – calls for a more complicated cure. That is why today I’m asking colleges across America to put an end to the jokes about M.R.S. degrees by actually starting M.R.S. degree programs nationwide. With all the talk about sexual diversity it’s high time we started to celebrate nuptial diversity without all this useless banter about gay marriage. No reasonable person could be opposed to M.R.S. degrees for women who aspire to be “nothing more” than a wife and mother. The most important job any woman can ever hold is that of a mother.

Important people like teachers can have an effect on thousands of students, but no teacher can have that much of an effect on a child she only knows for one year. Mothers, on the other hand, will influence their own children for about fifty years. Last week, Fox News ran a story saying that if housewives were paid they would make about $138,000 a year. This number demonstrates that there is a great deal that goes into being a stay-at-home mom. But is the average college graduate prepared to handle these responsibilities? Not without an M.R.S. degree. A student who chooses to pursue a bachelor’s degree in M.R.S. would receive a true liberal arts degree. She would take classes in general areas such as history, English, and science, just so she can educate her children. She should take child development classes, educational psychology, first aid, and accounting, too. Culinary classes, sewing, interior design, day care management, safe driving classes and communication classes would also be required. Of course, like any other major, the college would need to set up some new classes distinct to the M.R.S. major.

I have several suggestions below: MRS 101 - Why Ovaries Matter. Recently, a female student at Ohio University was attacked for saying she would want a male, rather than a female, firefighter to save her if she ever got caught in a blaze. Those who criticized her were under the impression that gender differences are simply socially constructed. That isn’t true. Men have testicles and women have ovaries. And both of these facts have consequences. MRS 102 - Sexual Activity and Reproductive Choice. If a woman has a constitutional right to have an abortion, she certainly has a constitutional right to be a slut, too. But there is no constitutional right to exercise a constitutional right without consequences. A woman needs to know how being a slut in college will affect her self-image and how that will, in turn, affect her marriage or marriages later in life. And she also needs to know how sleeping with a lot of women affects the psychological make-up of her future spouse.

“Equality” is not the only reason we need to do away with double-standards on pre-marital sex. MRS 210 - Sex after Marriage. A woman has an obligation to keep herself trim and attractive after she gets married. She also has a right not to have a fat slob for a husband. That’s why married couples should work out together. That will do a lot to keep their sex lives interesting but they’ll need more than just physical fitness. That’s what this class will be all about. MRS 220 - Spousal Communication. Some women who are married think it’s alright to talk to their mothers each and every single day on the telephone. That’s okay, unless, of course, she’s talking to her mommy about a marital problem her husband does not even know about. It’s not rational or adult to expect the man to figure out the problems you conceal. It’s far healthier to learn to communicate with your spouse directly even if it means there will be an occasional argument.

And, for the sake of fairness and balance, there will be plenty of time in this class to talk about the consequences of marrying a momma’s boy. Cait Jacob and Becky Banks join my wife and mother-in-law as some of the prettiest red-heads you’ll ever see. I thank them for giving me the inspiration to write this column. Because we need more women just like them, we need M.R.S. degree programs now. Our young men need good wives more than anyone needs another degree program teaching women how to become lesbians, feminists, and man-haters for life.

9 comments:

I'm really impressed at the length that this guy will go to in order to make his point. Really though, why shouldn't we have an M.R.S Degree? Despite the fact that there are mothers out there that are worse than Brittney Spears appears to be in the news, I would argue that in order to have an M.R.S. degree the guy would have to do at least do two things: 1. Be smart enough to tell us what M.R.S. stands for. 2. Create a degree HNTBAAH, I know lots of letters. But basically this degree would tell men how to not become assholes and write such incredible statements as saying that a woman should be able to get a degree in becoming a housewife. That is such a disgrace to feminity and to mothers. Essentially because it is making the concept of being a wife and a mother some tangible item that could be earned. I agree that being a mother is one of the most important roles in life; however, but I'm sure that despite the fact that there are mothers that could use a crash course in parenting, some mothers out there would object to this idea of getting a degree in becoming a mother.

Also, getting back to the idea of how this affects feminism. Affecting Feminism? This would kill it. It is so beyond my ability to put into words how offensive I find this. It is such an out of date way of thinking and would take us back to the days of "Leave it to Beaver" and before the days when women could vote and own property. I wonder if they would allow the "wife/mother" potential to actually own her own degree.

I just... wow. I don't even have a comment worth the name right now, this just blows my mind. The first part is so condescending that I felt the weight of this guy's hand, and I'm not even female. Wow.

People like this are the reason I'm so torn on feminism. I believe that sometimes, feminists try to have their cake and eat it, too- they try to get new jobs and respect while still sitting on the pedestal looking pretty. I don't like that, because it demeans the demand for real work and it makes them hypocrites, which is never good.

But when I read something like this- something so patently insane I can't even really talk about it without flying into a rage- it makes me want to wave and shout with an Audre Lorde quote emblazoned on a banner and Mohanty right beside me. This stuff is ridiculous.

As for a "mother" degree? Other than the suggestion about working out- which would probably help with our obesity rates- it's just wrong. Mothering is such a widespread, varied profession that there is no single "correct" mother- no idealized image that works every time, nothing that can be taught.

My mom, for example, doesn't just wear the pants, she owns the boots that go with them. She knows more about fixing cars and the electrical wiring in our water heater than my father does. But she's also perfectly content to relegate me and my father to do the manual labor while she directs, and she's an excellent cook, and she's a bundle of contradictions that end up cancelling out. Pretending that there is some "individual" stereotype of a mom that will work for everyone is- like everything in this article- pure condescension from someone who, I'm willing to bet, is a poor father.

Some good could maybe be drawn from this article if all the shit was taken out of it. If a woman wants to be a stay at home mom, she certainly has the right to do so. If she wants to raise her children and devote her life to that, more power to her. But she certainly need not get a degree for it. And it is certainly not her "place." She owes no obligation to her husband to stay pretty, or to cook dinner, or play the role of June Cleaver. She owes an obligation to herself to pursue a life endeavor she chooses without outside interference, and her husband similiarly owes a duty to her be supportive of her choice .

Sometimes I get mad when I read the work of Feminists because I get the image of male that I do not know, that is not me and is not anyone I know. I see the face and body of the monster portrayed but the face is blank, which I believe leads to extreme difficulty for me as a male to understand the position of woman and what its like to be woman. It seems to come easy for me to think feminists are fighting a "male" that I do not know so therefor must not exist, but something such as this proves me wrong. So long as there is 1 person out there who could write/agree with an article such as this, the role of feminism in mainstream society has a place.

This guy sounds like he could be Phyllis Schlafly’s husband or son. He speaks as if the only one responsible for the home is the woman – as does Schlafly. Wow, wouldn’t class be even more interesting if we had someone with these opinions.

This guy first attacks the woman who wants to “find herself” as a selfish, broke, on the edge of a mental breakdown female. Maybe she doesn’t make as much money as her husband because of the patriarchal reward system. Why should she even have to ask him for money? Shouldn’t their money have been in a joint account or did they split the bills 50/50 regardless of what she earned? The writer might as well throw in “Where’s my dinner, woman?”

Is he pained because she has been educated and is aware of her oppression?

He insinuates that the woman he speaks of is a mentally fragile person needing her medication. This, I believe, is a throwback to the belief that all women have a hysterical side and are “mixed up.” I personally don’t feel that women are any more mixed up than men. The mental weakness claim is an avenue for which men to assert that women are not capable because of their weak-mindedness of handling “important” affairs that may involve some stress. This backs up the claim that the man is the head of the household and should be the primary wage earner because he is not mentally weak.

The writer seems to resent women who have a sense of themselves and believe they have self-worth. This education thing has just come along and messed everything up from his male-dominated society point-of-view. I truly feel sorry for the women in his classroom. I don’t feel I could look upon a person with these attitudes as a legitimate professor.

Hmm... I bet we won't hear this story on one of Bill O'Reilly's outrageous professor segments anytime soon. However, it is one of the most outrageous professor stories that I have heard in a long time.

I'm sick of hearing these pathetic arguments about why women are supposed to “learn” how to be terrific wives for the sake of the man, while men are not expected or encouraged to “learn” to be good husbands in return. It is true that men, if they chose to marry, "need" good wives--- but women, if they chose to marry, also "need" good husbands. However, the people usually making these arguments are men trying to blame all of men’s downfalls on women, for one reason or another. It reminds me of an argument I heard about African American males who were caught up in the criminal justice system. The argument urged black women to provide a supportive environment for black men--- thus, helping them turn from their lives of crime, and learn how to be nurturing and loving. The author of this article and individuals making similar arguments seem to completely ignore any rights of women to have their own goals and aspirations, and merely turns them into a sort of “support system” for men. Such an arrangement allows men to blame any failures they may suffer on a breakdown in that “support system”.

Any married individual is entitled to expect the love and support of his/ her spouse. However, this is as true for women as it is for men. It is not fair of this author and others to place the added burden of "raising" a husband to the list of supposed female tasks, especially without encouraging that same love and support to be reciprocated.

How can he say that women who believe that wife and husband should be equals in marriage received a bad education in college? They receive the same education as their male counterparts, and the men don’t seem to have a problem. What he’s really saying in this whole argument is that women don’t need to have an education at all. In his own words, a college education teaches women to be “man-haters for life.” What he really wants is for women to leave the real stuff to the men, and get their M.R.S. degree, which is not a degree at all, so that they can do the work that women are supposed to do. Maybe the “idiotic” women that need to discover something more in themselves got a really great education, and want to do more with their lives than be wives and mothers. He doesn’t argue the point that men are more than husbands and fathers. Why doesn’t he just come out and say that girl’s education should end before college, and they should stay out of the workforce? I also wonder if he thinks that he has come up with some new wonderful idea in all of this, because it has all been said before.

Keith-This is the dumbest article i have read all year round. This guy is a huge fox news fan given his "fair and balanced" approach as well as citing fox news for the article which is about as reliable as if a four year old had said it. I hate the part where the author says the most important thing a woman can do is be a mother. Is the most important thing a man can do is be a father? Of course not. This guy has seen one too many episodes of "Leave it to Beaver." If a woman wants to be a stay at home mom, so be it, but to offer a degree in teaching women how to be housewives is just simply stupid. Will they offer classes for men to be stay at home dads? I think this article simply shows how stupid and sexist men can be. This guy is the reason women have been oppressed for so long. You know there are guys out there who just love this article, they say, "hey this guy's right" in all seriousness. Its sad, but a lot of people think this way, including some women. It's just sad.

Although I think about the time in my life when I will become a mother, I don’t feel that my entire existence is as someone’s wife or mother. One day I would like to be a good wife but if my husband isn’t satisfied with my house keeping skills I don’t feel I alone should have to improve on them. Marriage is about sharing and compromise not entirely the wife pleasing her husband. As for children, they need a good mother and father. Having a positive male role model is extremely important. A father figure that teaches their children the equality of men and women, not one that teaches the continuous cycle of female oppression.

I think the author must have been from a time of I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver. He needs to wake up and smell the coffee and understand that women have goals in life, besides completing all the credit for a M.R.S.

An M.R.S. degree, that makes perfect sense. Hear me out on this. Universities all over the country, starting of course with Bob Jones, can educate young women on how to be subservient, submissive Stepford Wives. That would be great. I mean men don’t want a thinking, living, opinionated wife to begin with. They just want something to cook, clean, and fuck whenever they want. Something to care for the children and keep the laundry in order!

Let’s face it, women aren’t even real people! Not unless they do what men want them to do. Sing girl, dance girl, let me cum on your face girl! I don’t care how it makes you feel, because you aren’t really real. Just a mannequin that mimics being alive. I don’t fucking care if you die.

That’s right, you aren’t even smart enough to know how to rear children. You have to get a degree in M.R.S. just to get pregnant now. Hell, just to start dating! What honorable man would want you if you aren’t versed in the culinary and sewing arts, these are things women are biologically programmed to be good at anyway (god made them that way, he told me so himself! After a few beers of course.).